darkSpyro

I just wanted to give folks the best overall buy for those trying to get the best bang for their buck of the stuff released.

Regardless of system, you best grab is as follows (excluding Wii and 3DS)

Starter set (regular)
Sea Racing Pack
Nitro Stealth Stinger

This gives you access to all areas of the base game, yields all the sea tracks, and optimizes your super charger combos by getting you 3 challanges. This should keep you busy for a while and no other characters will really be needed. If you like using figures if their proper zones when walking through the levels, just use your older figs and get that extra mileage out of them we all told ourselves we could get out of them when they were purchased.

Hope this helps!!

For people who don't care about the extra sea tracks (and/or don't want another Gill Grunt), Dive Clops and Dive Bomber might be a better option than the sea racing pack, particularly while TRU is doing the "Buy 1 get 1 40% off" deal

If you get the Starter at Toys R Us, the sea racing pack is 40% off. It's still a better option unless you really want Dive Clops instead.

I brought a Wii Dark starter, a 3DS starter, the sea pack, as well as an additional sky and sea vehicle plus their Skylander so my kids can have one of each type of vehicle and their driver. I might not buy any more since it's a very expensive game and I did spent way too much on TT last year.

If you're on a budget, save your money now and wait to buy the starter pack around Black Friday for about $40. Then go nuts with the best figure sales at that time as well. You will stretch your dollar a lot farther of you wait for sales. If you simply must get figures now, I'd suggest going with the TRU BOGO 40% off sale and going with a grandparent with AARP membership (Monday through Thursday only) to stack a $5 off $25 on top of that. The AARP discount stacks with ongoing sales. If you don't wish to bother with hunting for sales, a wise investment is the Beat Buy Gamers Club Unlocked with a flat 20% discount on games/figures. It all depends on how much you're willing to buy with your current budget and how much you anticipate buying within the next 2 years.

^ Or wait a couple years till Gamestop sells a used game only for $3. Pick up a used Hot Streak for $3. Pick up a sky and sea vehicle for a maximum $30.

$36 total high end, $12 low end (I dunno how low other vehicles will get on ebay and Gamestop so).

I mean that's great, but waiting 2 years doesn't really help anyone who wants the game now and wants to know how they can just scrape by and not spend $300+ if the first couple months on this.

What to buy? Up to you. Stretch dollar and only buy with sales. Trying to get everything new at half off? Good luck, not going to happen unless you wait for an eBay sale two years down the road. In lieu of that, just get the game new and do ALL THE OLD skylanders --there's 4 years of inventory you can get. This isn't exactly a game that promotes light spending,. Stick to your guns/budget and dont let feature lockout on the game turn you away.

If you're really looking to save some sweet dosh, hold off on the game until Black Friday...or even next year. Many stores will be doing bogo sales in the run up to christmas so that's when you can pick up figures you might be interested in (and there's not that many in total anyways which is nice) and then wait until next year when they drop the prices of the starter packs by $30 or more.

The game isn't going anywhere and unless you want to be the first person to play through it for some bizarre reason, there's no problem in waiting a while and saving a lot of money.

Some of you are missing the point of the OP. I was listing what you could go out and buy NOW before major figure sales and be able to play through the lionshare of the content. They won't be missing out on anything if they wait to get dive Clops or Terrafin or whoever. The sea racing pack gives you a lot of tracks play around with until you're able to get more stuff at a great discount. As I said, the toys r us sale gets you the racing pack at 40% off as well so you are already saving there.

The two targets I went to on the false info they had wave 2 out already had plenty of Stealth Stingers left. This is the best choice due to game having Challanges for driver/vehicle combos. This was meant for those looking to trim the fat and get the most content of what's available and wait for Christmas to drop anything else with the associated sales.

They seemed to have taken required toy (to see included content) concerns to heart this year. Some reviews point out that a total of four toys are required to see all areas of the main game. You need a Land, Sea and Air vehicle and one Skylander. The standard Starter Pack comes with two of those. That's an improvement over 10 toys for Trap Team and 8 for Swap Force, Giants and SSA (and even then your options were limited in order to keep the minimum set to that). Also, all necessary toys are available on Day 1.

Everything beyond that is optional and based on what how you want to play. Obviously most are going to want more than that.

$30 week from parents.
Preordered dark pack and sky slicer
Brought random stuff and now have $25
Game comes out in 3 days.
Prob getting another lander or vehicle